That's because France has no law school viewed as first-rank, so BigLaw firms looking for French lawyers view the foreign law degree as a virtual necessity, reports Bloomberg. Traditionally, the law has not been treated equally with business, government and economics in France—all three of which, unlike the law, are represented among the “Grandes Ecoles,” French institutions of higher learning that offer prestigious professional degrees to a select group. Legal education is offered at public universities that are open to a much larger pool of students.

Hence, major law firms looking for attorneys in France prefer candidates with a business or economics degree from a Grande Ecole and an American or British law degree, says Renaud Bonnet, who serves as recruiting partner for the Jones Day office in Paris. “It's no longer enough to just do law school.”

Many in France also see a need for more elite legal education there, and are promoting changes in the current system. “The legal profession is ascendant,'' says Louis Vogel, the Yale University-trained president of France's oldest law school. But for French attorneys to compete successfully with American and British lawyers, he says, “It is absolutely necessary to have a Grande Ecole of law.”

It's true that as far as I can tell there isn't as much interesting legal academic writing going on in France as I'd expect. There's lots of interesting academic writing going on there, some of it is about law, but a surprisingly small amount of it is by law faculty.

Surprising, though, that the legal profession in a country with a reputation for a degree of intellectual insularity and for having a conservative legal establishment would be so open to foreign credentials. Perhaps those reputations are undeserved?